Friday, September 12, 2014

Speed Posting, 9/12/14: The First WOC To Lead the American Bar Association, Oscar Pistorius and Ray Rice

Oscar Pistorius has been found guilty of culpable homicide in the death of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. "Culpable homicide" in South African law is roughly equal to manslaughter. His actual sentence could be as long as fifteen years or he could even avoid prison altogether, depending on the judge's decision. The decision not to find Pistorius guilty of premeditated murder hinges on this:

In South Africa, a perpetrator can be convicted of murder if he or
she had foreseen that their actions would lead to someone's death and
still proceeded with that course of action. Ms Masipa said she could find no proof that Pistorius had the
requisite intention to "kill the deceased, or anyone else for that
matter".

Legal expert Prof Pierre de Vos tweeted : "Not sure rejection of [murder charge] is correct here."Surely if you shoot into a door of a small toilet and know somebody behind door you foresee and accept possibility of killing?"But the judge clearly said on both Thursday and Friday that
the prosecution had not proven beyond reasonable doubt that the athlete
had foreseen that he would kill someone when he fired four shots through
the door of his toilet in the early hours of Valentine's Day 2013.

In the US it's difficult not to see that case as relating to the question of intimate partner abuse and how famous people are treated when they are found to have committed such abuse or even the death of the abused. But the South African context is somewhat different:

There is a perception here in South Africa that most crime is
committed by poor black people targeting the white middle classes or the
wealthy elite.Cue "white fear" - a phrase used to refer to the rich white
haves in society who live behind high walls, afraid of the intruder who
may come in the night. It was the threat of this intruder that
apparently gripped Pistorius with fear on that tragic morning.

It's still hard to say whether Reeva Steenkamp received justice. I get that legal decisions must be framed on law and evidence and don't always match our innate feelings of what would have been just.

Talking about intimate partner abuse, the Ray Rice case in the United States has provoked a lot of debate about what Janay Palmer and the survivors or victims of abuse in general should have done or should do (and a lot of debate about the National Football League's values, culture and general behaviors).

I'm still trying to write something very long on intimate partner violence in general, but certain powerful and emotional pieces are worth reading both about the reception of the news by some who would defend Rice or blame his then-girlfriend-now-wife and the dilemma of trying to understand victims who don't leave the abuser or who refuse to charge the abuser:

First, on the question why victims don't leave their abusers, read this and this. Second, on the views of some black men who take Rice's side and what's wrong with those views, read this.

Note that all those pieces try to increase our understanding of these cases. They are not about what courts should decide in any particular case. Neither do the "why I stayed" pieces mean that the society shouldn't interfere or that the matters are somehow private business.

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